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Aaron and Erin

Are the names Aaron and Erin pronounced the same? A bicoastal listener insists they should sound different. A longer discussion about Erin vs. Aaron is on the Straight Dope message board. This is part of a complete episode.

Foreignisms and Loanwords

In the novel Jane Eyre, characters sometimes speak whole sentences in French. A high school English teacher says her students wonder if there’s a term for inserting whole sentences from another language into fiction. Grant talks about the use...

Favorite First Lines

Some novels grab you from the get-go. “I am an invisible man.” “Call me Ishmael.” “The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.” Martha...

Language Newsletter in Your Inbox

Greetings! In our latest show, we talk about an expression familiar to many African-Americans but little known outside that community, "I couldn't buy a louse in a wrestling jacket." Also, what does it mean if your dog is...

A Skosh about Surfing and Tweets

Ahoy! We kicked off the new fall season of "A Way with Words" this weekend, asking, "How much humor and personality can you pack into a 140-character update? A lot, it seems. We discuss funny Twitter feeds, the origins of...

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